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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843685">Wish Not Change</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven'>smalltrolven</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Case Fic, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Mutual Pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 22:16:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,914</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/smalltrolven/pseuds/smalltrolven</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a picture that Dean has in his wallet. It’s of the two of them, even though it’s not really them, but it’s still the stuff that wishes are made of. It takes a journey to New Orleans and back, a new case opened and closed, and wishes made and granted, for that wish to maybe come true.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Wincest Reverse Bang</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wish Not Change</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelios/gifts">kelios</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Warning: Spoilers for season 15<br/>Author’s Note: Not my characters, only my words. Information on the Casket Girls was gleaned from <a href="https://gonola.com/things-to-do-in-new-orleans/history/the-casket-girls-wives-for-french-new-orleans">this article</a>. The <a href="https://www.oldursulineconventmuseum.com">Ursuline Covent museum </a>is pretty interesting too. Many thanks to Kelios for the beautiful and inspiring artwork.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Be sure to check out the beautiful <a href="https://kelios.livejournal.com/86938.html">art master post right here.</a></p><p>
  
</p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p><em>Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it. </em> <em>Marcus Aurelius</em></p><p> </p><p>****</p><p>Dean’s had this picture, for a lot of years now. It’s something he had brought back from that weird universe Balthazar had sent them to, where everything had been so strange and so familiar. He’d found the photo in his counterpart’s trailer on that tv show set, it had been tucked into a journal. It was a picture of that universe’s version of them, the two actors, Jensen and Jared. They were at some kind of music festival, and they were tucked up together, like they were the only two people in the world, their body language screaming out intimacy and partnership. The words that had been written in the actor’s journal on the page where Dean had taken the picture from were permanently etched in his mind:</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>He is mine, I am his. No matter what anyone else knows, this I know for sure, for forever.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>He turned the picture over and read those same words, running a finger over his own neat cursive. He’d written them down when he had first taken on the Mark because he’d been worried that it would change him so much that he might manage to forget them. He would have gotten them tattooed on himself somewhere if he thought that he could have hidden that from Sam.</p><p> </p><p>Dean turned the picture back over and traced his finger around their intertwined bodies. He had only ever been able to see it as himself and Sam in this picture instead of the two actors who looked exactly like them. The picture seemed to somehow contain the possibility of how it could have been, or maybe could still be between them. Who was he kidding? He knew that was impossible now, even though there had been chances and opportunities for them to change into that over the years. But for whatever reasons, they had not chosen to take that pathway. And now they were old and set in their ways and facing down yet another apocalypse.</p><p> </p><p>No wonder he was looking so hard for a case, he would take just about anything at this point just to get them the hell out of the bunker. They both needed something to occupy the time until Chuck turned his attention back on them, like some eye of Sauron swiveling around demolishing any world he bothered to look at. That had been the highlight of his oh-so-lovely nightmare tonight. That image had him jerking up straight out of bed, and drinking whisky in the kitchen by himself. He found himself wishing that they were staying in a motel room, so at least he’d have some company even if it was just Sam sound asleep in the same room.</p><p> </p><p>Sam walked in right then, his hair a complete mess, sweaty and stuck to his forehead in sharp points.</p><p> </p><p>“Bad night?” Dean asked, quickly tucking the picture into his robe pocket before Sam could notice.</p><p> </p><p>“You too, huh?” Sam answered, fiddling with the electric kettle.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s been a few days now, and nothing, no signs. I keep dreaming that it’s our turn next,” Dean admitted.</p><p> </p><p>“Same—it really sucks. But get this, I found us a case,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“You really think we ought to—“ Dean asked, which was just a pro-forma question really.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s all the way down in New Orleans,” Sam interrupted with a small smile.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll be ready in ten,” Dean said, standing up and gulping down the last bit of whisky in his glass.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s not that much of an emergency. I want to take a shower at least before we hit the road,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Ok, Frances, but none of that taking a freaking hour fixing your hair,” Dean said, exiting the kitchen with a grin. There was something about setting out on a case with Sam, gunning for the road, full cooler, weapons at the ready—that was the life.</p><p>***</p><p>On the drive there, Sam got out his case notes and they started talking about New Orleans and their various experiences with voodoo or Voudon.</p><p> </p><p>“When was the first time you worked a case that was Voudon related instead of voodoo?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I first came across the real deal Voudon when I was working a case, in New Orleans, like a month before Hurricane Katrina hit the city. Which just happened to be a couple months before I came and got you out in Palo Alto,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“What was the case?” Sam asked, utterly surprised on two counts. To be hearing about something from so long ago, especially from that particular time period they avoided talking about at all costs.</p><p> </p><p>“Turned out to be street vendors selling what they thought were knock-off made in China kind of versions of Gris-Gris bags, but there were a few real ones mixed in. They were the real deal, a type of dark Voudon or something, I forgot what the name of it was. It got some people killed, which put the case on our radar. I eventually figured out who was contaminating the supply for the stuff being sold to tourists. It was the first case Dad sent me out to work on my own.”</p><p> </p><p>“Let me guess, it was a high schooler who’d learned it on the internet and was trying to make enough cash for spring break,” Sam guessed, not taking the bait on talking about Dad. He wasn’t up for it.</p><p> </p><p>“Nope, but that’s a pretty good guess. It turned out it was an actual old-school, traditional Voudon practitioner who was completely fed up with all the fakery and shit going down in his city.”</p><p> </p><p>“There’s a lot of that down there, people think they want the real deal, but they don’t really know it when they see it, much less revere it in a way that is acceptable to the true believers. It’s got to really suck to see your traditions treated so badly like that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I told the dude, that I understood why he’d do something like that. But he couldn’t hurt random people like that, it wasn’t solving anything. Eventually he promised to cut it out,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“What’d you threaten him with?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Told him I’d cut off his jujubes and sell them for love-spell trinkets on Bourbon Street.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam laughed until he just about had tears in his eyes. Once he stopped he looked over at Dean and caught him looking at him with a strange almost lost look on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Nothing…just haven’t seen you laugh like that in a long time,” Dean said with a smile that tugged at something in Sam’s memory.</p><p> </p><p>He hadn’t seen this smile in a while, it was the one Dean got when he’d made Sam let loose and truly laugh. It was full of pride that he’d done something good for Sam, made the hard life they lead just a little bit better even if just for that moment. “Thanks for that, guess I really needed it,” Sam said, smiling back at Dean, full and wide with honest thankfulness.</p><p> </p><p>Dean beamed at being thanked for a moment and then turned his attention back to driving.</p><p> </p><p>“Jujubes, hah!” Sam said, laughing again.</p><p>****</p><p>As they drove, Sam went over the particulars of the case with Dean. It was a series of several very strange deaths over the last month, which were only connected by the victim having visited a popular historical tourist site the day before they’d died. Several people seemed to have died after being in a state of extreme happiness. Witness after witness interviewed in the police reports said that the person was as happy as they’d ever seen them, that something they’d been yearning for their whole lives had finally come to pass. And then they’d gotten dark and surly, unlike themselves before ending up dying in the Mississippi. Each body had been fished out of the water in the same place near the Governor Nicholls Street wharf.</p><p> </p><p>“After reading all these witness accounts, I think this seems like wishes are being granted somehow,” Sam said after reading over the details in his notes for the tenth time.</p><p> </p><p>“You mean like a djinn or something else?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, since they’re ending up in the river with all their blood, I’d say something besides a djinn. Maybe a witch or a cursed object since all the victims were in the area of this historical museum.”</p><p> </p><p>“What history exactly?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s the Ursuline Convent Museum, used to be an old Catholic convent, dates back to the late 1700s. Do you know the story about the casket girls? Because it might be related as it’s centered on the place.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ooh, casket girls, sounds spooky and probably right up our alley. But no, I don’t know the story,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know about spooky exactly but the story goes that the casket girls were mostly poor young immigrant girls from all over Europe, they were promised by matchmakers that they’d find a good match in New Orleans. They were packed into ships and a lot of them got TB on the way over so they would be a creepy shade of pale. They arrived in the city at the dock that is just a block down the street at the river.”</p><p> </p><p>“This happen to be the same dock the bodies are being found underneath?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Yep, one and the same, so maybe there’s a connection somehow. Anyway, back to the casket girls, when they got off on the dock, the Ursuline convent would take them in, along with their little caskets of belongings until they got matched up with whoever needed a wife.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah, got it, so not caskets like burial caskets, more like suitcases, much less spooky,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, the convent is definitely on the spooky spectrum. Over the years, the outer walls of the place would be plastered and re-stuccoed to try to keep the heat out. And the casket girls would embroider their wishes onto pieces of silk torn from their petticoats to add into the wall as it was getting worked on, layers of wishes over the years.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sounds like a whole lot of concentrated wishing and hoping going on, that plus the combo of Catholicism and Voudon happening at the same time.”</p><p>
  
</p><p>“The article I was reading said that there were ‘layers and layers of wishes for something new, something good, please give me something I deserve.’ That could add up to something, I bet this has to do with the wall of the place itself instead of something inside the museum. It reminds me of the whole Tulpa thing we dealt with in Texas that time, remember?”</p><p>“Yeah, kinda hard to forget how we had to burn that place down just to stop it. If this convent wall is somehow involved, it might be the source of the wish granting power, but who’s the one telling these people where to make all these wishes? Or is it some internet rumor or something, like that Tulpa case was?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I couldn’t find anything like that online, but maybe it’s someone there near the wall, getting the tourists to make wishes somehow. That’s what we need to go check out after we talk to the witnesses.”</p><p> </p><p>“How are there even witnesses still around, I thought the victims were all tourists, are their families still in town?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s only two witnesses that are still around, but that’s because both of them were locals who had visitors from out of town that died. The rest of the folks have all gone back home since it’s been a few weeks,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>Sam directed Dean through the crowded streets to a small guesthouse he’d booked for them online. He’d chosen it because it was one of the few that advertised they had a guaranteed parking space. It was of course on the small side, but Dean eventually managed to maneuver Baby into the designated spot. Their room was also tiny, with two twin beds and a shared bathroom down the hall. It was all old fashioned period furnishings, but not overly floofy like some of the B&amp;B’s they’d stayed at over the years.</p><p> </p><p>After they got unpacked and changed into their Fed suits, they drove out to one of the far-flung suburbs to interview the first witness. According to the police report, she had hosted her college roommate for a visit and taken her to all the touristy destinations in New Orleans that her old roomie wanted to see. And then her roommate had ended up dead in the Mississippi the next morning.</p><p> </p><p>As they walked up the woman’s red brick entry path, Dean noticed the way Sam’s shoulders were filling out his Fed suit perfectly once again. He’d regained the muscle and weight that he’d lost during the whole reign-of-Michael business. He looked good, no more than good, beautiful even, those big shoulders strong and wide, that glorious mane of hair glinting in the late morning sun. He followed Sam in the front door and sat down next to him on a couch across from the witness, still thinking about Sam’s hair. He heard Sam make an ahem sound and brought himself back to the task at hand.</p><p> </p><p>“Around two that afternoon, we were at the Ursuline Convent Museum, down at Chartres and Ursuline Avenue, there’s a city sponsored cultural hands-on exhibit tourist thing they have every Saturday that’s usually fun. I always take visitors there so they can get a feel for what New Orleans used to be like. Cindy did the witchy make a wish thing. Later that night she got a call from her husband, their adoption had finally gone through after years of waiting. She was on top of the world—until she wasn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“What do you mean, Sue?” Sam asked with that encouraging open face that nearly every witness they'd ever encountered found they could not resist. Dean knew the feeling.</p><p> </p><p>Sue looked up at them with fear echoing in her deep blue eyes. “We’d had a few drinks after dinner, celebrating how she was finally going to have a child to call her own, something she’d talked about wanting all through college, she turned…strange, like surly with me or something like that. It was totally weird, I thought it was maybe because we hadn’t seen each other in a while or that she was wishing the celebration was with her husband, you know? She was being really kind of shitty, so I went off to bed, and boy do I wish I hadn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>“Why, what do you think would be different if you’d stayed up with her, Sue?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe I could have helped, I don’t know. When she left, hours later that night, I guess the front door opening woke me up. I honestly just thought I was dreaming. There was someone with her, a young woman, so pale I’d call her ghostly. And she was wearing really tattered old fashioned clothes, her hair was long and an entire mess. I went back to sleep, and my friend, she was gone when I got up the next morning.” Sue’s head dropped forward, her curly black hair hiding her face from view.</p><p> </p><p>“Sue, I’m going to ask you something that might sound kind of strange. Did you notice if it felt cold when you saw the young woman with your friend, or did you smell anything weird?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It was cold, yeah, colder than I thought the night should be, but like I said I thought I was sleepwalking or something. There weren’t any smells I remember.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re really sorry for your loss, it must have been hard to tell her husband,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Thankfully I didn’t have to, the police took care of that, but I want to call him and tell him how damn happy she was about the adoption. But I suppose it would make him sadder, knowing that. I don’t know what to think or do. One-second she was happy as I’ve ever seen her, the next she’s being pulled up out of the river, and it’s all gone to shit.”</p><p> </p><p>“We’re sorry, that your friend is gone,” Dean said. “Thanks a lot for your help.”</p><p> </p><p>“You’re going to catch the guy, the one who did this, right? There’s a whole series of these supposed drownings, I’ve been seeing it on the news the last month or so,” Sue said.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s why we got called in on the case, we kinda specialize in this kind of stuff,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>Sam cut in before she could ask what kind of stuff Dean meant. “Sue, we’re on it, don’t worry. Thanks for your time.” He stood up and waited for Dean to join him at the door.</p><p> </p><p>“I guess that’s reassuring, thanks guys,” Sue said as she closed the door behind them.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think?” Dean asked as they slipped back into the Impala.</p><p> </p><p>“I think we need to go check out this Ursuline Convent situation,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Forget the other witness then?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“For now, yeah, we’ll see them if we have time later today. I want to get down there around the same time in the afternoon that Sue said she and Cindy were at the wall,” Sam said, a grim determined look around his eyes let Dean know he wasn’t up for discussing it further.</p><p> </p><p>Dean drove them back from the suburbs into the city and maneuvered back into the small parking space at their guesthouse. They changed into their civilian clothes, wearing only one layer on top for a change since it was getting to be a very hot day.</p><p> </p><p>They walked just a few blocks from their guesthouse until they spotted the Saturday afternoon crowds lining Ursuline Avenue in front of the Convent Museum. They ambled through all the cultural display booths which seemed to take turns with tchotchke booths selling all sorts of New Orleans trinkets, most of it voodoo more than Voudon related. Finally, they came across an older woman’s booth that had at least a three person deep crowd surrounding it.</p><p> </p><p>She had a mass of greying, frizzy brown hair and was wearing what seemed like fifty necklaces which were shining in the afternoon sun. The signs on her booth were covered in Wiccan symbols as well as voodoo and Voudon symbols. The largest sign announced her as<em> Madame Zee - teller of fortunes, granter of wishes</em>. She seemed to be presenting herself as being some sort of hybrid hedge-witch. It was probably an easy gig to make money fooling all the tourists that were swarming through this part of the old city. The thick plastered convent wall loomed behind her, glaring white in the sun as she leaned against it for support as she worked. The brothers watched carefully to see what her pitch and performance entailed.</p><p> </p><p>The table in front of her was covered in a hodgepodge of colorful bohemian printed tablecloths and scarves, the edges floating in the slight breeze as people passed by. On top of the table there were arrayed an assortment of Gris-Gris amulets, spell bags, wish candles, all that sort of mundane, usually safe stuff. The brothers watched as she offered to read tarot cards if the person wanted their future told, or for a slightly higher fee, she could perform a short ceremony that would grant them a wish. Most of the tourists went for the tarot reading, but a few chose the wish ceremony.</p><p> </p><p>Sam and Dean watched as each time she’d have the person making a wish light a brand newcandle. Next they’d be instructed to write down their wish on a small piece of parchment paper (nice touch not to be copy paper) with a feathery fountain pen in red ink (Sam really hoped it wasn’t blood). She very clearly insisted that they only be asking for positive wishes to be granted, there was no wishing someone dead or ill to happen to someone else allowed. She instructed the customer to then hold the written down wish in their left hand over their heart with their right hand on the plaster wall and say their wish three times out loud. Most people whispered their wishes which she assured them was just fine. She then had them repeat after her the words of a strange sounding spell that neither of the brothers recognized. To finish she had them burn the paper in the wish candle and then blow it out. Then she’d wrap up the partially burnt candle in a twist of aluminum foil with fragrant herbs for them to take and that was that.</p><p> </p><p>“Keep this with you for the next twenty-four hours until your wish comes true,” was the final thing she’d say as each customer left her table with a smile on their faces.</p><p> </p><p>Sam and Dean watched from the small crowd, listening in as one person after another said the words as they made their wishes. It didn’t seem at all out of the ordinary except the strange spell and the hand on the wall bit.</p><p> </p><p>Sam leaned over and whispered in Dean’s ear, “I’m going inside the museum, check things out from the inside of the place, just in case there’s something unusual. You want to stay here and keep watching or come with me?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean barely managed to not visibly react to Sam’s soft hair brushing against his neck as he whispered his question. He covered it up by answering, “You go get your museum boner taken care of geek boy, I’ll stay here.”</p><p> </p><p>Sam shook his head and growled a little under his breath. Dean hid a small chuckle and watched him stride up the crowded street to the museum entrance. The people grouped around the witch’s table had thinned out enough that Dean thought it was time to give it a whirl himself while Sam was inside the museum and otherwise occupied. Yeah, maybe it wasn’t the best idea in the world, given how the other people had ended up, but Dean was in a wish-making kind of mood all of a sudden. Maybe it was watching all the people walking away from her booth with all those big smiles.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, hello there, my darling,” Madame Zee’s voice purred at him as he sat in the folding chair across from her at the card table. One of her spidery hands with their long red nails took up one of his own hands, turning it palm side up. She ran one fingernail up the lines of his palm. “What is it you desire, shall I read your cards, tell you your future, or perhaps assist you in making a wish?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’d like to do the wish thing, thanks,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“Right down to business, sure thing, darling. It is forty, please,” she said, letting go of his hand and turning hers palm side up. He laid two twenties on it and they disappeared somewhere in her voluminous clothing. “You have been watching for a while, with tall dark and handsome at your side, so you know the procedure, no?”</p><p> </p><p>Dean nodded, agreeing with all of it, he knew the procedure and that his brother was indeed tall, dark and handsome—no argument there.</p><p> </p><p>She handed him the feathery pen and gestured at the bottle of red ink and a piece of parchment. “Remember, you may wish for nothing that will harm another.”</p><p> </p><p>Dean slowly wrote out the words that were always in his heart.<em> I wish that Sam and I were like the Jared and Jensen in the picture</em></p><p> </p><p>He held the piece of parchment in his hand, and stood up, placing his hand over his heart and the other on the wall. His palm soaked up the heat from the afternoon, as he whispered both the wish he’d written as well as the words that Jensen had written in his journal since they matched what was in Dean’s heart: <em>He is mine, I am his. No matter what anyone else knows, this I know for sure, for forever. </em>Somewhere in there he repeated the words of the strange spell and struggled to hold onto them to research later.</p><p> </p><p>It was all a blur after the words he’d spoken had stopped echoing in his ears, he was sitting in the folding chair again, burning the piece of paper and then holding onto the candle wrapped up in foil that she had pressed into his hands. He was in some sort of daze and it felt so damn good, he couldn’t help but smile like the love-sick fool he had always been. The witch or whatever she really was laughed a little as he stumbled away from her table, but quickly moved onto her next willing mark.</p><p>
  
</p><p>Sam found him leaning up against another part of the wall that was in the shade of a tree that was growing in the convent garden.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, you okay, Dean?”</p><p> </p><p>Sam sounded like he was underwater or asking the question from very far away. Dean swam back to himself, feeling like he was underwater himself. “Yeah, the sun just got to me,” he mumbled.</p><p> </p><p>Sam took him by the elbow and steered him towards one of the Cafe du Monde franchise stores. “Let’s go get an iced coffee or something.”</p><p> </p><p>As they walked a couple blocks, Sam’s hand now on his lower back to guide him through the crowds, Dean began to feel more like himself, fingering the foil-wrapped candle in his pocket. “Did you see anything interesting in the museum?”</p><p> </p><p>“I did, yeah, on the other side of the wall from where the witch had her table, they had a display of some of the casket girls wishes. Actually, I want to go back and check something while you wait in line. Get me a beignet and any kind of cold coffee.”</p><p> </p><p>Before Dean could agree or say anything, Sam was disappearing back down the street. Dean tried to ignore how warm his lower back felt where Sam’s hand had been and turned his attention back to the menu. He tried to remember if he actually liked the chicory coffee they served here or not. It had been a while since he’d had any.</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>****</p><p>A few minutes after Dean was seated at one of the outdoor cafe tables with their coffees and beignets, Sam returned. He was quiet at first but seemed to come out of it after he’d nearly finished the snack.</p><p> </p><p>“I forgot how much I liked these things, they’re so much better than plain old doughnuts,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t even like doughnuts though,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>Sam reached across the table and swiped his thumb slowly across Dean’s lip. Before Dean could say anything, Sam was sucking his own thumb clean of the powdered sugar he’d gathered up from Dean’s lips. Before he could stop himself, Dean returned the favor. Fair was fair right? The sugar swept off of Sam’s lips was indeed a million times sweeter. So was the dazed look on his brother’s face, it served him right pulling that kind of stunt.</p><p><br/>
Sam licked his lower lip slowly, almost like he was savoring the taste of Dean’s touch.</p><p> </p><p>Dean made himself roll his eyes to break out of the aching pit of want he found himself stuck in all of a sudden. All he wanted was to investigate the taste of sugar inside of Sam’s mouth and that was not a thing he could want, much less actually do, in public…or ever.</p><p> </p><p>As they walked back to their guesthouse, Sam kept touching him, guiding him through the crowd and Dean kept waiting for the next touch, almost breathless with the anticipation of it. Why was Sam acting this way? It was all so strange he wasn’t sure what to do with—</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Oh. Shit.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>His wish, the wish he’d made, it had come true.</p><p> </p><p>From the second Dean had made the wish, Sam had been acting like they were indeed lovers or partners or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. That thing that shall not be named or whatever. Dean realized in that moment, that it hadn’t been right to wish anything like that, no matter how much he wanted it. Now he had to try and resist because Sam was obviously under a spell, right? Dean knew that it was not at all okay to just take this as a win and run with it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Damn.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the evening, they walked around the neighborhood streets near the guesthouse as the night fell around them, still warm and humid. As they walked, they revolved around each other, always in constant contact, a hand on an arm, or on the lower back, even resting in a back jean’s pocket. It was exquisite torture for Dean not to take things further. The yearning for Sam’s touch had been a constant force in his life, but this was so far past that. There was intention behind it, every time they touched each other. Dean knew the war within himself was going to be lost at some point, he wouldn’t be able to resist for very long. He barely noticed the sights and sounds of New Orleans around him as they walked through the streets. His focus narrowed down to his brother in a dangerous way, he was lucky there weren’t any threats coming their way.</p><p>
  
</p><p>****</p><p>Later that night, Dean worried about whether he’d end up drowning in the river or not. He probably should have told Sam it was a possibility, just in case. He’d made the damn wish, and it sure as hell had been granted as far as he could tell. Sam’s warm body beside his in the twin bed was the evidence of that. Sam had insisted on curling up together on one of their beds to watch a documentary about the Casket Girls. Sam had fallen asleep before it had even ended and Dean hadn’t been able to get up the courage to move him. Dean felt like if he touched his brother’s body it would all blow up in his face. The whole wish thing would explode and wreck their life together the moment he laid a finger on his brother’s skin.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay?” Sam asked, his breath moving hot against Dean’s ear.</p><p> </p><p>“Just thinking,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“I know, it woke me up, it was like your whole body tensed up or something,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, I just need to get up,” Dean said, crawling over Sam to get off the bed. He stowed away the laptop and exited the room to hide in the bathroom down the hall. He took a long, hot shower, unable to stop touching himself as he remembered how good it had felt to hold Sam and be held even though Sam had been asleep. He knew it was nasty just even thinking that after having made a wish, but it was also hot as hell having finally gotten to feel his brother’s hands all over him like that. Sam’s giant hands, uhhh, just the thought of them was enough to bring him off the rest of the way.</p><p> </p><p>After about a half hour had passed, hopefully long enough for Sam to be deeply asleep, he crept back into the room and laid down in his own bed. It felt too big and empty and much too far away from Sam’s, but he knew he couldn’t let himself just fall into this trap face first. It was a beautiful horrible trap that he’d created for himself. It was all gone to shit, everything he’d ever wanted was right there, his for the taking, but not without erasing all the respect he’d finally gained for the value of Sam’s own choices. It was a fitful night filled with dreams of Sam running away from him, or Sam winding himself around him, all just Sam…Sam…Sam.</p><p> </p><p>*****</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, Sam woke up in his own bed, all alone and quite sad about it, but with a plan mostly formulated on how to proceed on the case. Sometimes it worked that way for him, cracking a case in his sleep, letting his subconscious mull over everything they’d found out the day before. He stayed in bed and reread all the case files on his tablet just to make sure he was really on the right track. He wondered if Dean had slept as badly as he had, the whole night he’d been aching to be wound around Dean like they’d been while watching that Casket Girls documentary.</p><p> </p><p>Sam thought he knew that Dean would share the wish that Sam had made yesterday, the one that seemed to have already started to come true. But then there was the way Dean had bolted out of their bed last night, locking himself in the bathroom for ages. Sam worried that he had gone too far and wished for something that only he had truly wanted. Maybe it was better that they’d slept apart, just in case Sam had been wrong. He’d never want to take something from Dean like that, it would be wrong, and it wouldn’t mean anything. He suddenly wished he hadn’t wished for anything at all yesterday.</p><p> </p><p>“We need to go see Madame Zee again,” Sam said as Dean entered their room balancing a tray of coffee and breakfast sandwiches.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, good morning to you too, sunshine. That means we have until the afternoon then, want to go to a museum or something?” Dean asked, because that was what couples did, right? Did things their partner or whatever wanted to do.</p><p> </p><p>Sam cocked his head at him, but didn’t answer Dean, not sure why he’d be offering to go to a museum. Dean usually hated anything like that, the only thing that was different was the wish Sam had made yesterday. <em>Shit.</em> “No, we’re going right after I finish eating this, but to Madame Zee’s apartment this time. We have to get this settled before she gets to anyone else.”</p><p> </p><p>“I did it yesterday, the wishing thing, and I’m okay,” Dean said, shaking his boots towards Sam. “See, not filled with river water.”</p><p> </p><p>“Haha, hilarious and yeah, me too about doing the wishing thing,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“So why are we so worried then?” Dean asked, looking surprised for a moment and then quickly hiding it with a one-sided grin.</p><p><br/>
“I’m guessing you weren’t…uh…wishing for children?” Sam asked, stomach plummeting with the thought that maybe that had been his brother’s wish. Instead of Dean wishing to be with him, what if he’d wished for kids? Dean had always wanted a kid, a family and all that entailed. Sam knew that, why had he forgotten that?</p><p> </p><p>“What? No, I was definitely not wishing for that,” Dean said. “Kids are not a thing I want anymore, besides we’ve got Jack, right? That kinda counts as far as I’m concerned.”</p><p> </p><p>“We…uh, yeah, we do have Jack, you’re right. The wanting kids thing, it’s the only commonality that ties all the drowning victims together, I read their files again to be sure. Just about all of them, the witnesses mentioned stuff about them being happy about having another kid or a first kid, or like Sue’s friend yesterday, getting an adoption to finally go through.”</p><p> </p><p>“And a Casket Girl was wishing for a family or children too, and is mad now that tourists are getting her wish fulfilled? We talking a ghost possession here?” Dean asked, downing the rest of his coffee.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s my working theory as of the moment, but I’m still not clear on how Madame Zee is granting all these wishes, it doesn’t seem related to the Casket Girl ghost idea,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“You got an address for her yet?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>Sam tossed a small piece of paper to him as he exited to use the communal bathroom down the hall. During his shower, Sam tried and failed to think of how it had felt last night, wound up around each other in the small bed. Falling asleep in Dean’s arms, his big strong arms that could hold him down and uhhh…that was all he needed. He switched the water over to cool and tried to calm himself down. This was going to be difficult to hide from Dean, he figured it would be showing all over his face, his lust and depravity, that he’d given in to and taken advantage of him after wishing for something that Dean hadn’t necessarily wanted too.</p><p> </p><p>He wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and stared at himself, schooling his expression into the usual one he presented to the world (and to Dean). Sam could tell he looked different, but he couldn’t tell exactly how. He stuck his tongue out at himself as he shaved. This was all getting a little ridiculous, but at least they hadn’t both drowned in the river last night. That reminded him—Dean had made a wish too. Sam wondered what it was, what wish would his brother have risked possible death by drowning to have granted?</p><p> </p><p>****</p><p> </p><p>It was within walking distance to the witch’s place, so they didn’t bother to drive. It was a bright morning, not too humid yet which was a nice change. Sam thought the city didn’t quite seem to be awake quite yet even though it was after nine. He was hoping that Madame Zee would be at home and willing to talk to them.</p><p> </p><p>“You got the witch killing bullets in your gun?” Dean asked as they walked along the sidewalk bumping hips and shoulders, their hands brushing together the whole way. Very distracting, but the best kind of distracting, Sam thought.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, got ‘em, but I forgot to bring the duct tape,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Gotcha covered, these days I never trust witches not to start mumbling spells at us. Rowena made sure I learned that lesson well,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>They soon reached the walkup apartment entrance and made it up the creaky wooden stairs to the top floor. There was no sneaking up on someone using those stairs. There was a small hand-written nameplate next to the apartment number which had the name: Rowan Zeekarian.</p><p> </p><p>Sam knocked at the door, Dean standing close, his shoulder pressed to Sam’s until it finally opened. Sam thought they made a good solid blockade together.</p><p> </p><p>Madame Zee looked very different standing in her apartment’s doorway, she seemed much smaller without all the jewelry and floating scarves. Her hair was still a greying brown curly mess, but her green eyes were curious and piercing.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, hello there, darlings, I’m surprised to see you after those lovely wishes you made yesterday,” Madame Zee said.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s why we’re here, Madame Zee,” Sam said, wondering if she actually remembered them and their individual wishes.</p><p> </p><p>“You may call me Rowan, I only use Madame Zee as my stage name,” Rowan said, still standing in the doorway.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you, Rowan, we’re here in New Orleans, investigating a series of strange drowning deaths. It turns out that each person had been to see you the day that they died. You are in fact the only thing that links together all of the victims,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I wouldn’t know anything about any drownings, I never go down to the river myself,” Rowan said, crossing her skinny arms and planting her feet wide as if she could possibly stop them.</p><p> </p><p>“Each of the witnesses we’ve spoken to recall seeing an extremely pale young woman, dressed in tattered old fashioned clothes near the person the night before they died. We have reason to believe you may be disturbing or connecting with the ghost of one of the Casket Girls,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Ah, those poor poor girls, just looking for a better life, and ending up as—it’s too ugly to speak of. As far as I know, none of the rituals that I am using with my customers would be at all useful in calling up a ghost,” Rowan said.</p><p> </p><p>“Would you be willing to share with us the source of the spell you use in your wishing ceremony?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“A witch never reveals her sources,” Rowan said, uncrossing her arms to waggle one finger in a tsk-tsk motion.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen lady, we can take you in, just with the evidence we already have. Cooperate with us here and now, maybe we can all avoid taking a trip downtown,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“Neither of you are actually FBI agents or officers of the law, you are something else entirely, perhaps even hunters given the boorishness. I have nothing at all to tell you, good day, sirs,” Rowan said, trying to close the door in their faces.</p><p> </p><p>Sam’s booted foot prevented the door from closing. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to insist.”</p><p> </p><p>Rowan’s face changed from a normal pissed-off old lady expression to one of calm and purpose, her lips began to move.</p><p><br/>
Dean’s arm reached out and slapped a piece of duct tape smack right down over her lips, his hand covering her mouth for good measure. Sam had her arms pinned behind her back and the door shut behind all three of them before she could even make a move to resist. Sam marched her over to an armchair and pushed her into it. Dean slapped the containment spell cuffs on her wrists. Her green eyes blazed with fury.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen, Rowan. We know you’re using something that is causing people to drown in the river. Don’t you even care?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>Rowan nodded yes, but the fury in her eyes didn’t diminish.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s possible you don’t actually know that what you’re doing is causing this, that’s why we haven’t wasted you already,” Dean said. “Tell us the source of those spell words, right the hell now and don’t try any more spell casting.” Dean ripped the tape from her lips.</p><p> </p><p>“The words…I learned them from my coven. We had a very powerful witch visit us a while ago and she had an old spell book with her, she called it the Black Grimoire. She was trying to persuade some of us to join something that she called her Mega Coven. I thought it sounded ridiculous, but I managed to copy down one of the spells while she was busy interviewing one of my coven sisters. The words just sounded cool to me, like a language I should know.”</p><p> </p><p>“So you don’t know what the words actually mean then? Why did you copy the spell down?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It seemed like my coven might need something as leverage, in case the witch didn’t leave us alone,” Rowan said.</p><p> </p><p>“This witch happen to be about yea high, long curly red hair, whole lot of eye makeup, probably wearing an inappropriately fancy dress of some kind?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>Sam held in his laughter at Dean’s very accurate physical description of Rowena.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, she called herself Rowena, I remember it because I didn’t like that her name was so close to mine,” Rowan said. “At first I thought she was a dabbler like most of us are, but she really liked to show off. It was pretty fucking scary really what she could do. I thought she was way too powerful for one woman.”</p><p>“We know her, and we definitely know what you mean. But back to the spell, do you have it written down?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Both of you said the words yourselves, don’t you remember them?” Rowan asked with a sly smile.</p><p> </p><p>“We’d rather get it straight from the source, if you’d just write the words down here and we’ll promise not to tell Rowena on you,” Sam said, placing his open notebook and a pen in her still-cuffed hands. Sam glanced up at Dean briefly to see his brother’s eyes full of the one question Sam couldn’t answer. Dean was probably wondering the same thing he still was, what did my brother wish for?</p><p> </p><p>Rowan glared at him, her green eyes flashing.</p><p> </p><p>“You start speaking a goddamn word and I’m slapping the tape back on, and this time I won’t be so careful not to get it in your hair,” Dean said with a growl.</p><p> </p><p>Rowan started writing.</p><p> </p><p>Sam took the notebook and pen back from Rowan and read over what she’d written. “This is definitely Black Grimoire stuff, I recognize the language.”</p><p> </p><p>“Any idea what it says?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s something about souls,” Sam said, “I have to get my translation key and figure the rest out, hold on.” Sam pulled up one of the database files on his tablet and keyed in the words of the spell. ”It looks like this spell is harnessing the accumulated power of the Casket Girls’ wishes, as well as taking a small piece of each of your client’s souls.”</p><p> </p><p>“Taking a piece of their souls? Like their actual souls?” Rowan asked, shock all over her face.</p><p> </p><p>“Rowan, you need to stop using this spell, immediately” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“I just thought it sounded cool and authentic, it’s not my fault,” Rowan complained.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard! I’ve changed my mind, we’re going to tell Rowena to come down here and deal with you!” Sam yelled.</p><p> </p><p>“No—no that won’t be necessary, I get it. I’m sorry about the people’s souls, I really am. I’ll use something else instead, that I know for sure is harmless. But what about the rest of the wish ceremony, the touching the wall and the burning the paper parts of it? Is all that okay to still use?” Rowan asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I think maybe skipping the wall would be good, just in case. And maybe trade with one of the other vendors for a different spot along the wall while you’re at it,” Sam suggested, still obviously seething.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll do it, I swear. I don’t want to be hurting anyone, that’s not what this is about for me,” Rowan said.</p><p> </p><p>“Sam, can I talk to you alone for a second,” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>Sam stepped into the kitchen with Dean.</p><p> </p><p>“You okay?” Dean asked, one hand on Sam’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m really pissed that she didn’t seem to give a flying fuck,” Sam hissed.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know for sure if we can trust her,” Dean said in an urgent whisper.</p><p> </p><p>“Same here, she’s one of the worst kinds of people to have something as powerful as Rowena’s spell. But if that or the wall was the source of the extra power she’s tapped into for granting the wishes, then maybe she’s not selling her soul to a demon like most witches do,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“So we’re just guessing that she’s a not-so-good witch instead of a bad witch? We’re gonna give her a hall pass,” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“Something like that. It’s just like the story you were telling me, where you didn’t off the guy selling the real Voudon pouches back in the day, right? We need to let her go with a warning, and then stick around a bit to see if we’re right,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Hanging out in New Orleans for a few more days? Fine by me,” Dean said with a grin.</p><p> </p><p>“And no burning down the convent,” Sam said, hip checking him for emphasis.</p><p> </p><p>“How did you know I was going to suggest that?” Dean asked, hip checking him right back.</p><p> </p><p>“You always want to burn stuff, you’re practically a pyro at this point,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“Think we’re going to end up in the river?” Dean asked as they turned to go back to Rowan.</p><p> </p><p>“If it didn’t happen last night, probably not. Neither of us wished for anything regarding children. And now that we’ve got the spell part of things figured out here with Rowan, I think my theory that the drownings were caused by the ghost of one of the Casket Girls is probably right.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do we need to take this ghost out somehow?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I think she was only getting activated by Rowena’s spell and the physical connection with the wall,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“What’s all this about a ghost?” Rowan asked, looking genuinely curious.</p><p> </p><p>“The people who drowned, most of them were wishing for children, and my guess is that the Casket Girl’s wish had been similar,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“You see, ghosts get messed up when they hang around and get stuck, her jealousy has been baking in the New Orleans sun for too long,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“The ghost was the one who drowned those people?” Rowan asked looking back and forth between them.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, we’ve encountered this before, ghost possession, they get inside you and make your body their own, sometimes they’ll kill whoever it is they’re possessing, depends on the ghost,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“I read in the museum about one of the Casket Girls drowning in the river, maybe a suicide or a murder, it wasn’t clear. I’m guessing it was probably her,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“So it wasn’t me killing the people then?” Rowan asked, looking hopeful.</p><p> </p><p>“You were an accessory to it. They’d still be alive if it wasn’t for you, so don’t go letting yourself off,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“We sure as hell aren’t going to be letting you off. Rowan, we’ll know if you step off the straight and narrow,” Dean said, undoing the cuffs.</p><p> </p><p>“That a threat?” Rowan asked, rubbing at her wrists.</p><p> </p><p>“No, it’s a promise. People need their souls, it’s not something to mess around with,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“All my customers went away happy as far as I knew,” Rowan protested.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, the ones who didn’t die,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“And the ones who lived, well there’s no way to get the pieces of those people’s souls back, so hopefully whatever they wished for was worth the loss. They’ll just have to learn to live with it, but there’s no way to quantify just how many people’s lives you may have affected for the worse,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“We’re leaving without doing anything more to you because knowing that is the worst punishment we can think of,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>Rowan didn’t get up to see them out, looking small and deflated in her chair as they closed the apartment door behind them.</p><p> </p><p>****</p><p>
  
</p><p>So, in the end, Sam and Dean didn’t have to kill Rowan, or burn the wall of the Ursuline convent museum down just in case, even though Dean had really really wanted to do both. But as they left her cramped apartment, Sam held Dean’s hand the whole way back to the guesthouse which kind of made up for it as far as Dean was concerned.</p><p> </p><p>“Listen, Sammy, this—” Dean shook their joined hands, “This is all because I wished for it.”</p><p> </p><p>“And?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“And, it’s not right, either me making the wish in the first place or the spell making it happen. It’s making you do something you wouldn’t have done without it, and I shouldn’t have wished for something like that,” Dean said.</p><p> </p><p>“Wait, hold on, you think I didn’t make the same kind of wish?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“What?” Dean asked, stopped in his tracks, stunned by the very idea.</p><p> </p><p>“You have—you have no freaking clue do you?” Sam asked, with a sad smile.</p><p> </p><p>“Apparently not a single clue, nope. Think you can uh…try to explain it to me?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I went back, to her stall that first day, while you were standing in line buying us beignets and coffee. I wanted to see if she did the same thing every single time, if she would have me say the same words all the other people had said. I thought maybe we hadn’t been able to hear it all clearly from where we were watching her.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sammy, did you hear me though? I mean, did you hear what I wished for when I did it first?” Dean asked, terrified that Sam had done this thing just to make it even between them, even though he didn’t really want it himself. That would make this whole thing a million times worse.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I was inside the museum when I’m guessing you took your turn, I only heard the people wishing before you,” Sam said.</p><p> </p><p>“So you didn’t know what I wished for then,” Dean said, so relieved he almost fell over when he felt his knees buckle. Luckily, Sam was right there at his side, holding him up.</p><p> </p><p>“I…uh, I think I have an idea. Dean, you should know something, I’ve seen it…the picture, you know the one that you have in your wallet with the writing on the back?” Sam asked, cheeks flaming red and hectic with embarrassment.</p><p> </p><p>“Shit,” Dean said, his stomach sinking at the thought of Sam knowing all this time. He stopped walking abruptly and leaned up against the nearest wall.</p><p> </p><p>Sam stopped after taking several steps without him and came back, leaning against the wall next to Dean so closely that their shoulders were pressed together. Dean tried not to panic, tried to steady his breathing and match it with Sam’s. This was it, the final moment, before it all blew up, Sam knew about the picture.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, and I…I’ll confess I made a copy of it,” Sam said, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. He rummaged through one of the smaller sections. He pulled out a small piece of paper folded over many times. It was a copy of the picture with the same words written on the back in Sam’s own writing. “I always thought the picture was how we should or could be, I wished for it so many times before we ever got to New Orleans.”</p><p> </p><p>“So when we both wished, you think we wished for the same thing?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m guessing so, yeah,” Sam said, picking up Dean’s hand and twining his fingers through.</p><p> </p><p>“Then this is the real deal, it’s not from the wishing or the spell or any of that?” Dean asked.</p><p> </p><p>Instead of answering, Sam pulled Dean’s hand up to his lips and kissed the back of his hand.</p><p> </p><p>Dean felt the answer pulse into his skin, filling his body with the light and heat that Sam always filled a room with. He sagged forwards into his brother’s arms, his head hitting Sam’s shoulders, his hand over Sam’s heart. He could feel it racing just as fast as his own. Sam’s hands were on him then, all over his back, skimming over the top of his ass, and he pressed Sam up against the door to their room, aligning their bodies just so. They both groaned and frantically searched for each other’s mouths, lips brushing and pressing together, going from soft all the way to hard and insistent in a bare instant.</p><p><br/>
Sam somehow managed to get their door open and they tumbled inside the small room. Dean’s hands were on Sam’s shirt, tugging it up and over his head, while Sam did the same for him. They wrapped around each other, bare chest to bare chest, marveling at how the other’s skin felt like their own, but also like something they’d always been missing. Sam’s hands, his giant hands ran up and down Dean’s back, over his shoulders, skimming over Dean’s nipples that had gone taut with the pleasure of all the friction. He gasped into Sam’s mouth at the feeling.</p><p> </p><p>Dean was being pressed down onto one of the beds, his brother’s strength laying him out like a human sushi buffet. Sam’s lips were all over him now, suckling at his neck, nips of sharp teeth and then teasing both of his nipples in turn. He writhed and swore under his breath, but Sam held him down which was even hotter somehow. Sam’s mouth was going lower, licking down to just above the waist of his jeans. Sam looked up at him then, eyes blazing with the heat and lust between them, asking a question that didn’t need to be asked out loud.</p><p> </p><p>“God, yeah, anything, Sammy, anything—” Dean managed to say, trailing off to a garbled growl as Sam mouthed over him through his jeans. He could feel his teeth where he was most sensitive, exquisite friction edged with pain, even through the thick material. Dean’s hands were in Sam’s hair then, his glorious hair, holding him there, right there, oh god, he didn’t, he couldn’t hold back from…</p><p> </p><p>He came back to himself because of all the motion, Sam was jacking himself, hard and fast, his face gone taut with pleasure, his eyes still locked on Dean’s. Dean managed to knock Sam’s hand away, keeping the rhythm up while Sam thrust into his fist.</p><p> </p><p>“C’mon, Sammy, come for me,” Dean said, meaning it with everything he had, he wanted to see it, to feel it, to be the one to make it happen.</p><p> </p><p>Sam unloaded on him with an unfinished yell of Dean’s name, messing them both up when he collapsed down on top of Dean. Dean allowed it for a long few moments until it became too hard for him to breathe. He rolled Sam off so they were facing each other and held Sam close so he wouldn’t fall off the small bed.</p><p> </p><p>“You were…that was too—“ Sam couldn’t finish, still panting hard like he’d been off on one of his morning runs.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, really, tell me about it, I didn’t even manage to get my jeans opened up,” Dean said with a laugh, gesturing at the wet spot on the front of his jeans.</p><p> </p><p>“Think that shower in the bathroom will fit both of us?” Sam asked.</p><p> </p><p>“I think the clawfoot bathtub is a better bet,” Dean said.</p><p>
  
</p><p>***</p><p>They stayed in New Orleans for a few more days just to keep an eye on Rowan and her clients. And while they were there, they tried it out, being this new thing. Both of them were pretending that they were just two ordinary lovers on a vacation. And it mostly worked, and they were happy, and they didn’t feel like throwing themselves in the river or anything dramatic like that. Their souls didn’t feel any loss from whatever pieces they’d traded away for their fulfilled wishes, their souls finally felt complete.</p><p> </p><p>They walked along the shores of the Mississippi and looked at all the historic ships that were tied up, they checked out all the museums Sam could find within walking distance, and got drunk on Bourbon Street several times just because they could. Every morning they ate as many beignets and drank as much chicory coffee as they could stand and listened to the joyous music of the streets every night. No one else drowned, and Rowan was set up in a different location that was well away from her old spot at the convent wall.</p><p> </p><p>After taking nearly a week off from their normal life, they got a call from the real world. It was Jack calling, telling them that something was finally up with Chuck and so they packed up and headed back home. Just like any regular couple coming home from vacation a few days early because their kid didn’t like their babysitter.</p><p> </p><p>Everything had changed, and everything was still the same, but somehow put right.</p><p>
  <em>THE END</em>
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